‘These pathological cases are the devil!’

‘D’you think he’s mad, sir?’

‘Much less mad than I’d imagined. Weak-headed, boastful, a liar — yet a certain pleasant simplicity about him. Highly suggestible I should imagine…’

‘You think someone did suggest things to him?’

‘Oh yes, old Miss Marple was right there. She’s a shrewd old bird. But I wish I knew who it was. He won’t tell. If we only knew that…Come on, Lake, let’s have a thorough reconstruction of the scene in the Hall.’

III

‘That fixes it pretty well.’

Inspector Curry was sitting at the piano. Sergeant Lake was in a chair by the window overlooking the lake.

Curry went on:

‘If I’m half-turned on the piano stool, watching the study door, I can’t see you.’

Sergeant Lake rose softly and edged quietly through the door to the library.

‘All this side of the room was dark. The only lights that were on were the ones beside the study door. No, Lake, I didn’t see you go. Once in the library, you could go out through the other door to the corridor — two minutes to run along to the oak suite, shoot Gulbrandsen and come back through the library to your chair by the window.

‘The women by the fire have their backs to you. Mrs Serrocold was sitting here — on the right of the fireplace, near the study door. Everyone agrees she didn’t move and she’s the only one who’s in the line of direct vision. Miss Marple was here. She was looking past Mrs Serrocold to the study. Mrs Strete was on the left of the fireplace — close to the door out of the Hall to the lobby, and it’s a very dark corner. She could have gone and come back. Yes, it’s possible.’

Curry grinned suddenly.

‘And I could go.’ He slipped off the music stool and sidled along the wall and out through the door. ‘The only person who might notice I wasn’t still at the piano would be Gina Hudd. And you remember what Gina said: “Stephen was at the piano to begin with. I don’t know where he was later.” ’

‘So you think it’s Stephen?’

‘I don’t know who it is,’ said Curry. ‘It wasn’t Edgar Lawson or Lewis Serrocold or Mrs Serrocold or Miss Jane Marple. But for the rest — ’ He sighed. ‘It’s probably the American. Those fused lights were a bit too convenient — a coincidence. And yet, you know, I rather like the chap. Still, that isn’t evidence.’

He peered thoughtfully at some music on the side of the piano. ‘Hindemith? Who’s he? Never heard of him. Shostakovitch! What names these people have.’ He got up and then looked down at the old-fashioned music stool. He lifted the top of it.

‘Here’s the old-fashioned stuff. Handel’s Largo, Czerny’s Exercises. Dates back to old Gulbrandsen, most of this. “I know a lovely Garden” — Vicar’s wife used to sing that when I was a boy — ’